Locomotives may employ a plurality of traction motors, typically four or six, for driving locomotive wheels. However, conventional wiring of these motors has led to certain disadvantages with respect to the interrelationships between respective motors. For example, prior art traction motors were typically hard wired in parallel and/or series with at least three to five other motors. Thus, a fault in one motor would render all of the motors inoperable and thereby render the locomotive inoperable. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide traction motor isolation for railroad locomotives to disable any individual traction motors exhibiting faults while leaving the non-faulting motors operable.
The aforementioned and other drawbacks and deficiencies of the prior art are overcome or alleviated by a traction motor isolation switch in accordance with the present disclosure.
A railroad locomotive includes traction motors for propelling the locomotive, and an isolation switch disposed in signal communication with at least one of the traction motors for isolating a faulting motor from the other traction motors.
These and other features and advantages of the present disclosure may be better understood and appreciated when considered in conjunction with the following detailed description and associated drawings.